Mining In North East England

Shallow Seams By The Sea

The North East of England was in the fortunate position of having shallow seams of coal and other minerals such as lead near the coast, which meant that material could be transported in and out by sea. This led to the growth of ports such as Newcastle and to the development of the iron and steel, chemicals, shipbuilding and other industries. Developments in transport also came about as a result of this activity and villages built to house workers often grew into towns and cities.

These links will take you to websites with more information on the region:

Miners on their way to the pithead baths at Ashington (New Moor) Colliery

North Pennines Heritage Trust - the trust conserves the historic remains of man's activities in the Northern Pennines and has carried out conservation, restoration and interpretation work at over 15 locations in Cumbria, Northumberland and County Durham.

North East England coal industry records - second part of the Tyne & Wear Archives Service guide to North East coal industry records. Note that this is a PDF file. It may open automatically if you have software that can read PDFs. If you do not have such software Adobe Reader can be downloaded.

Woodhorn - the website for the former Woodhorn Colliery site at Ashington in Northumberland, which is being developed into a visitors centre which will house the county's archives office, a museum and other attractions.

The lead mining areas soon had a familiar mixture of chimneys (which took away fumes from the smelting process) and shafts or levels (dug into the ground to follow a vein of lead). The lead ore would be stripped of its waste products, washed and crushed, and then taken to the smelting mill where the lead would be produced as ingots.

By the 19th century competition from other lead mining areas overseas and the fact that the best ore had been worked led to the end of the industry. However, waste products from the lead mining process such as barytes and flurospar are still being extracted from waste tips.

Silver was often found alongside lead. Allenheads, between Stanhope and Alston near the Northumberland-Durham border, was once the largest silver mine in the world (finally closing in 1896).

These links will take you to websites with more information on lead mining in the region:

The sea also helped produce yet more minerals which could be used in the North East and Yorkshire. Jet is a hard black material created from fossilized driftwood laid down in the sea. Because it is light it can be polished and carved to make jewellery or objects.

These links will take you to websites with more information on mining in the region: